CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, teenage relationship is common. You would see teenagers holding hands in the amusement parks, corridors and even public vehicles. It almost became a trend in the teenage world. More often, relationship status becomes a statement in the popularity of a person, and the aliveness of one’s life.

College life may serve as a challenging chapter of life to every student. College used to face different forms of life, like different struggles to face in a day to day basis. This is the age where the transitional phase in every student happens, in which time management is hard to handle. Many college students are involved in a romantic relationship, but involvement to this may just cause more stressors to handle.

Studying is toxic and very exhausting, sometimes escaping from stress and relaxation is what a student is looking for. Teenagers look for moments where they can feel free and love. The feeling of love remedies the toxicity of what a student is experiencing. It lets a person escape from reality and live by its fantasy. But imagination just only brings happiness; people still live in reality thus resulting to poor performance. Thus, it definitely depends on the person who’s handling it.

According to the study made by Matthew Kopfler, it says that, “Students in relationships tend to have a higher stress level when meeting deadlines on assignments and completing school work, but the study also stated that it depends on the student.”

Ortigue (2010) explained that, “The findings have major implications for neuroscience and mental health research because when love doesn’t work out, it can be significant cause of emotional stress and depression.”

In the article entitled Boyfriend-Girlfriend Relationship: Does it affect studies of a student? (Jencai, 2007), the author shared about her experience in having a boyfriend relationship that she really became so happy compare to her situation before, but her time was divided into two and she got more time with her partner compare to her studies. She may be happy that she graduated and passed all the subjects but she is not that satisfied with what she performed in school because she lessens her time for it.

Intimate relationship may bring happiness to one’s life but this happiness may bring tardiness in the aspect of studies. Relationship may bring joy but this just hardens the ability of a person to balance of time management. In total, love may bring person in ultimate happiness but also leaves a person in real despair.

Most recently, the report in the educator sector in Uganda shows a country wide decline in students’ performance in Uganda Certificate of education (UCE) examinations. While, of the 262, 987 candidates who sat UCE last 2012, 13, 363 or (5.1%) failed, according to the results released by the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB).

Fagil Mandy, UNEB (Uganda National Examinations Board) chairman, discussed that love affairs are the cause of decline in performance of the students. He explained that love affairs topped the list in his research made for five years to find out why students fail. Mandy noted:

… as a result of love affairs, students were spending a lot of valuable time in telephones, gossiping and social media, instead of concentrating on studies…

Recent studies just show that love affairs in college may just distract a student in studies. Thus, distraction in studies lowers the academic performance of the student and the people around it and results to decrease in academic performance of the group that greatly affects the totality of the class.

Ortigue (2010) explained that, “the brain, but the heart is also related because the complex concept of love is formed by both bottom-up and top-down processes from the brain to the heart and vice versa. For instance, activation in some parts of the brain can generate stimulations to the heart, butterflies in the stomach. Some symptoms we sometimes feel as a manifestation of the heart may sometimes be coming from the brain.

(King Parker, March 25, 2013) Today, teenagers early in middle school are involved in a romantic relationship. The termed, “love birds” on teenager’s relationship and the feeling of excitement was experienced for the first time. At an early age, romantic relationship deeply affects one’s academic performance. They easily get dated and break-up. The changing emotional involvement interrupts the attention of the teenager in academic studies and assignments. Some parents are too busy to interfere with their children’s academic life as well as their love life. They needed some extra time to talk with their children. Statistics shows that teenagers who frequently dated have lower academic performance compare to those who does not.

It shows up that college intimate relationship may just be considered as puppy love for it is just psychological. It may just bring sudden feeling of excitement and interest in mutual partners for just the start of the relationship but as it lasts, it became boring and misunderstanding may arise between the two.

This illustrates that intimate relationship adversely affect one’s performance in studies. Benefits may be, bringing happiness to the person, mutual welfare between the two people involved in the relationship and time expenditure but the negative effect about it, is that it expends time not for academic reasons but for short time enjoyment purposes. It also distracts and slows down the time allotted for a certain activity. It destructs the time management planned for the day. And by these times, college students are most of the development of the adolescence stage in which the emotional aspect was not that stable to handle such problems, especially with regards to emotions or feelings. It is the time that teenagers feel the doubt and guilt with respect to their identity. Since, college students are of the developmental stage in which emotion is a weakness, and heartbreaks may follow, thus causes more stress and merely distracts the academic performance of the student. Poor performance of students may result to lesser specialized individual who can help in achieving ultimate success for the society it belongs. In contrast, sometimes gives inspiration to the person but it still depends on the person on how he/she balances the priorities, whether they uses the intimate relationship as a motivation or as a destruction.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Love is an emotion, according Dario Maestripieri, the evolutionary history of human romantic love may have progressed along the following lines. As human brains grew and infants became needier and more vulnerable for a longer period of development, such that the father's involvement and bi-parental care became necessary, natural selection had to come up with a way to motivate men and women to stay together for as long as it took to raise a child successfully. Now, natural selection never invents anything from scratch but rather modifies and rearranges preexisting structures. The psychological and emotional adaptations for the infant attachment system already existed in the brains of our ape ancestors and had worked pretty well to keep infants and mothers together. Natural selection tweaked this system, making it operational through adulthood, so that it could be used to bond mates to each other. Some of the neural circuits and the neurochemical substances that had been used to bond mothers and children, also became involved in mediating bonding between adults. On the other hand study is the devotion of time and attention in acquiring knowledge on an academic ubject, especially by means of books. It is our way of educating ourselves, for many this is the most priceless thing that they can pass on to their children, from generation to generation. The Progressive Education Association, inspired by Dewey’s ideas, later codified his doctrines as follows: 1. The conduct of the pupils shall be governed by themselves, according to the social needs of the community. 2. Interest shall be the motive for all work. 3. Teachers will inspire a desire for knowledge, and will serve as guides in the investigations undertaken, rather than as task-masters. 4. Scientific study of each pupil’s development, physical, mental, social and spiritual, is absolutely essential to the intelligent direction of his development. 5. Greater attention is paid to the child’s physical needs, with greater use of the out-of-doors. 6. Cooperation between school and home will fill all needs of the child’s development such as music, dancing, play and other extra-curricular activities. 7. All progressive schools will look upon their work as of the laboratory type, giving freely to the sum of educational knowledge the results of their experiments in child culture. These rules for education sum up the theoretical conclusions of the reform movement begun by Colonel Francis Parker and carried forward by Dewey at the laboratory school he set up in 1896 with his first wife in connection with the University of Chicago. With his instrumentalist theory of knowledge as a guide, Dewey tried out and confirmed his new educational procedures there with children between the ages of four and fourteen. (W. F. Warde (George Novack), 1960)
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

This study sought to assess and analyze the effects of intimate relationship regarding academic performances. To attain this goal, the following specific problems were addressed in this inquiry:

1. How do the students concentrate on their academics if they have a commitment on another person?

2. Is there any good or bad change in their study habits while they’re in a relationship?

3. How do the students handle the degree of seriousness and pressure in study and in a relationship?

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The research on the effects of intimate relationships among FEU College students in academic studies will be important for the determination whether there is adverse or upright effect of intimate relationship on the academic performance of a student. It is important in determining whether the study may be of good condition to handle such situation.

The research may greatly affect students. This may help in determining whether a student may be suitable for relationship or if the student can handle the pressure of the stress that may be experienced in the intimate relationship to be encountered. The study validates the importance of the education rather than early adolescent relationship.

The study may help in parents understand more about children, particularly in early adolescent stage in which they are having a difficult time in understanding them. It essential for parents to encourage children to choose and maintain studies rather than having them involved in intimate relationships that causes distraction in children.

It is intended for the contribution of the study in the development of the future studies to be conducted related to the research which may help in advancing the knowledge contained within the study. Thus, helps in the attainment of success for the society.